Listen to the report by Gayatri Parameswaran and Felix Gaedtke report from Qamishlo, Syria:

Syrian Arab promotes Kurdish culture

Sameer Shaiyer has been singing Kurdish songs since he was a child (Photo: Felix Gaedtke)

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting provided a grant for Reese Erlich’s coverage of Bahrain. Listen to the report by Reese Ehrlich from Manama, Bahrain:

Bahraini crosses class borders to help torture victims

Jihan Kazerooni ignores social and religious divides

Listen to the report by Leah McDonnell:

Listen to the report from Leah McDonnell

Hagar Levin, pictured, is helping to build bridges between cultures

Listen to the report by John Ridley:

Peace through the arts in Bahrain

Wafa believes in the goodness of her fellow Bahrainis

Wafa plays on a women's soccer team

Wafa define Malja as a conceptual art hub

Check out Wafa’s arts community, Malja, on Facebook.

Yorgui Keyrouz started the blood bank on his mobile phone

Samar Khoury is ready to give

Listen to the report by Dalila Mahdawi:

Blood Bank in Lebanon

Watch this DW video to find out more about how young global leaders are creating opportunities for young Arabs in the Middle East.

Young Afghan politician sacrifices for change

More from Deutsche Welle on Said Mahmoud Pahiz here.

Afghan street artist longs to share her work

Shamsia is freer to share her work in Germany than in Afghanistan

Shamsia says she invented a new kind of graffiti

Syrian activist uses mobile phones to campaign for freedom

From reporter Reese Erlich:

Erbil, Kurdish Region, Iraq

I wasn’t sure what to expect when setting up an interview with a grassroots leader of the Syrian opposition. We were both staying in the relative safety of Iraq’s Kurdish Region, far from the long arm of Syria’s Mukhabarat (military intelligence).

But still, Ciwan Rashid didn’t want to meet me at home. We agreed to do the interview on a crowded Erbil street with a shopping mall and restaurants. He gave me his name, but it’s a nom de guerre.

Rashid lives in the predominantly Kurdish region of Syria. Kurds have long faced discrimination at the hands of the Syrian government. Rashid says all Syrians face repression, but “Kurds in Syria faced even more repression than others.”

Rashid, like many other Syrians, watched the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings with great anticipation. In Syria, demonstrations started in Damascus in March, caught fire in the southern town of Dara and ultimately spread to the northern Kurdish cities as well. Rashid immediately joined the protests.

“I wasn’t afraid,” he told me. I asked why not. After all, people were being arrested, tortured and killed. “There are two choices,” he said. “One is to escape and survive. The second is to die. If I survive, I will have my freedom.”

Palestinian artist gives hope to community under occupation

Watch a short documentary film about Eid here.

Eid with his wife Na'ama and daughter Sadin

From DW reporter Kate Laycock:

I first met Eid in November 2010, when I visited his village in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the company of a mutual friend. 

Although many people had tried to describe Eid to me, nothing could have prepared me for the emotion of the encounter.

Here is a young man living in one of the poorest areas of the occupied West Bank. The villages live in rickety concrete dwellings with corrugated iron roofs. Almost all the homes in his part of the village have demolition orders on them. The bulldozers could come at any time. 

And yet he dares to dream.